Atlantic Coast ODYSSEY

Morocco may be known for its souks and sand dunes, but fringing that famed, exotic interior is over 1,200km of Atlantic coastline and a melting pot of cultures to explore

- SARAH GILBERT

As the sunset faded into a purple night, I sipped on a negroni at the rooftop bar of the Hôtel Nord Pinus, tucked into Tangier’s historic kasbah and decorated with vibrant handcrafted carpets, rich in Amazigh Berber symbolism. Next to me, three Moroccan girls perched around a table and discussed the meaning of life, dipping in and out of Darija, French and English with consummate ease. I scanned the Atlantic ocean; the lights of Spain twinkled on the horizon. I was almost within touching distance of Europe and yet Tangier felt, as Mark Twain said many years before, ‘thoroughly and uncompromisingly foreign’.

Think of Morocco and you might think of the mysterious medinas of Marrakech and Fez, the rugged peaks of the High Atlas, or the sand seas of the Sahara. But along its windswept northern Atlantic coast, from bohemian Tangier and cosmopolitan Casablanca, fishing villages and bird-filled lagoons, storied Portuguese forts and vast swathes of golden sand, there are off-the-beaten-track treasures still to be discovered.

If you take Al Boraq – Africa’s first high-speed train, named after a mythical winged horse – you can be whisked from Tangier to Casablanca via Rabat in just over two hours. But why rush it? Instead, I was taking the coastal road less travelled, driving south from Tangier to Essaouira in order to discover another side of Morocco – its untouched coastline and its mix of cultural influences.

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